| 释义 |
▪ I. contact, n.|ˈkɒntækt|
[ad. L. contact-us (u-stem) touching, contact, f. contact- ppl. stem of contingĕre to touch (each other): cf. F. contact (in Cotgr.).]
1. a. The state or condition of touching; the mutual relation of two bodies whose external surfaces touch each other. Hence to be or come in (into) contact.
1626Bacon Sylva (J.), The desire of return into the body; whereupon followeth that appetite of contact and conjunction. 1766Pennant Zool., Basking Shark (R.), They will permit a boat to follow them..till it comes almost within contact. 1799Med. Jrnl. II. 28 It has been asserted, that the cow-pox cannot be communicated but by contact. 1807–26S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 399 By which means the edges of the wound in the trachea will be kept in contact. 1849Ruskin Sev. Lamps v. §10. 145 Bringing it into visual contact with the upright pilasters. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 75 So as to avoid contact with air. 1885Whitaker's Alm., Eclipses. First contact with the Penumbra, 1h. 50m. aft. First contact with the shadow, 2h. 59m. aft.
b. with pl.
1718Quincey Compl. Disp. 6 The Cohesion in all Bodies must be as the Surfaces and Contacts of their component Parts. 1833Lamb Elia Ser. ii. iii. (1865) 260 How he sidled along, keeping clear of all secular contacts.
c. to make contact or break contact: to complete or interrupt an electric circuit. Cf. contact-breaker, -maker in 6. Hence, the touching or uniting of points or surfaces of conductors to permit the flow of electric current; also, a device for effecting this.
c1860Faraday Forces Nat. vi. 168 If I make contact with the battery, they are attracted at once. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. II. 172 If we make contact only for an instant, and then break contact, the two induced currents pass through the galvanometer in..rapid succession. 1915‘Bartimeus’ Tall Ship i. 30 ‘I suppose you tested the contacts?’ he asked. 1932H. Nicolson Public Faces vii. 192 He stood stock still beside the aeroplane while the pilot fiddled inside with the contacts.
d. Psychol. A light pressure upon the skin or the sensation of this. Also contact sensation.
1901Baldwin Dict. Philos. & Psychol., Contact Sensation... A sensation made up probably (Dessoir) of Touch Sensation and Pressure Sensation. 1903Royce Outl. Psychol. 133 Still other points on the skin, very wealthily interspersed amongst the others, give us, if excited in isolation, sensations of contact or of pressure.
e. Aeronaut. Used as a signal to a person about to swing an aircraft propeller that the ignition system is switched on; usu. as int.
1913C. Mellor Airman vi. 29 On the word ‘contact’ given by the pilot the mechanic launched the Chauvière ‘Intégrale’ propeller, and the trusty Renault engine started at the first swing. 1917‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 16 ‘Contact!’ replied the flight-commander; his engine roared, around flew the propeller. 1919Berta Ruck Disturbing Charm xi, I climbed in, and the boys swung the propeller. I gave 'em ‘Contact’, and then I was up and off. 1933Word Study May 4/2 ‘Contact’..is the word of warning given by the pilot of an airplane to the starter who spins the propeller, or ‘cranks the motor’.
f. ellipt. for contact lens (sense 6). Usu. in pl. colloq.
1961in Webster. 1980A. Pearl Dict. Popular Slang 29/2 Contacts, abbreviation for contact lenses. 1982S. Conran Lace v. xxx. 320 But Pagan, you look exactly the same, except you don't wear glasses any more. Contacts? 1984M. Amis Money 44, I can't wear glasses because it hurts my nose. I can't wear contacts because it hurts my nerves.
2. transf. and fig.
a. to come in contact with: to meet, come across, be brought into practical connexion with.
1818Byron Ch. Har. iv. cxxv, Though accident, blind contact, and the strong Necessity of loving, have removed Antipathies. 1862Trollope Orley F. xiii. 103 Never till now had he come into close contact with crime. 1874Green Short Hist. iii. §4. 127 A new fervour of study sprang up in the West from its contact with the more civilized East. 1889Illustr. Lond. News 21 Dec. 782/1 A large baboon..snapping at all it came in contact with.
b. So point of contact.
1862Lewis Astron. Ancients i. §1. 2 The history of astronomy has numerous points of contact with the general history of mankind. 1883G. Lloyd Ebb & Flow II. 192 They had a point of contact where they least expected it.
c. A person who has been exposed to infection by proximity to a person suffering from an infectious disease.
1901Standard 4 Mar., A large number of contacts and suspects have been placed in quarantine. 1907Practitioner Dec. 837 The infection of scarlet fever is not carried..in the clothes of mere contacts.
d. A person who can be called upon for assistance, information, etc.; an acquaintance, esp. one who can be useful in business; an agent; a connection or acquaintanceship. orig. U.S. colloq. (Cf. quot. 1833 under sense 1 b.)
1931G. Irwin Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 54 Contact, a connection or affiliation made by a criminal to protect himself from arrest or to make crime easy. 1931H. G. Wells Work, Wealth & Happiness (1932) x. 426 It helped them to obtain what the Americans call ‘contacts’. 1935Economist 19 Jan. 133/1 By a series of links in a..chain, varying in substance from closely definitive trade agreements to mere directorial ‘contacts’, the group maintains an individual relationship with leading British concerns. 1937A. Christie Murder in Mews 89 She's had three husbands, one Italian, one German and one Russian, and..in consequence she has made useful what I think are called ‘contacts’ in three countries. 1949M. Laski Little Boy Lost ii. iv. 71 Madame.. may not have been the curé's only contact for disposing of those children. 1954X. Fielding Hide & Seek 64 Who, we hoped, would put us in touch with another trustworthy contact further on.
e. Aeronaut. The state of being in sight of the surface of the earth (see contact analogue, flight, flying under sense 6 below). Also used as quasi-adv. U.S.
1940Life 16 Sept. 65 Most of the trip was flown ‘contact’. 1947Harper's Mag. Apr. 324/1 When you can see any trace of the ground,..that's ‘contact’—because you are visually in touch with the world.
3. Math. The touching of a straight line and a curve, of two curves, or of two surfaces; the meeting of two curves (or surfaces) at a point so as to have a common tangent (or tangent plane) at that point; the coincidence of two or more consecutive points on each of two curves.
If two consecutive points on each curve coincide, the curves are said to have contact of the first order; if three, c. of the second order; and so on. angle of contact: the angle between a curve and its tangent at any point, or the (infinitesimal) angle between two consecutive tangents at that point; also called angle of contingence or of curvature.
1660Barrow Euclid iii. xii, If two circles..touch one the other outwardly, the right line AB which joins their centers A, B, shall pass thro' the point of contact C. Ibid. iii. xvi, Any acute angle, to wit, DAE, is greater than the angle of contact DAI. 1840Lardner Geom. 187 If one of the cylinders..be rolled upon the other, their line of contact will move parallel to itself. 1884Williamson Diff. Calculus (ed. 5) 290–1 The circle which passes through three infinitely near points on a curve is said to have contact of the second order with it. Ibid. 304 The tangent to a curve has a contact of the first order with the curve at its point of contact, and the osculating circle a contact of the second order. Ibid. 306 If the contact be of an even order..the curves cut each other at their point of contact.
4. Geol. Hence contact-bed, contact-deposit, contact vein.
1881Raymond Gloss. Mining Terms, Contact, the plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock. A contact-vein is a vein, and a contact-bed is a bed, lying, the former more or less closely, the latter absolutely, along a contact.
5. attrib.
a. Chem. contact action = catalysis.
b. Electr. contact electricity, contact force, contact potential: see quot. 1881.
1859Todd Cycl. Anat. V. 138/1 To be referred to the class of ‘contact actions’. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 337 It appears that when two different metals are in contact there is in general an electromotive force acting from the one to the other, so as to make the potential of the one exceed that of the other by a certain quantity. Ibid. I. 339 This is Volta's theory of Contact Electricity. 1882Watts Dict. Chem. II. 12 Examples of these contact actions are found both in inorganic and in organic chemistry. 1885Watson & Burbury Math. Th. Electr. & Magn. 225 This difference of potentials is generally called the electromotive contact forces of the two metals..The metal of higher contact potential.
6. a. Comb., as contact analogue, a device which presents navigational information visually (in chart form) to the pilot of an aircraft; contact bed, a tank containing porous material through which sewage is filtered in order that contact with the bacterial organisms and atmospheric oxygen in the pores of the material may chemically destroy the noxious organic matter in the sewage; contact block, brush, piece, etc. Electr., devices for the passage, conduction, or transmission of electric current by contact (see 1 c); contact-breaker, a contrivance for breaking an electric circuit automatically; contact brush, see contact block; contact-clause (see quot. 1946); contact flight, flying (orig. U.S.), navigation of an aircraft by the observation of landmarks; contact glasses = contact lenses; contact healing, the healing of illness by physical contact with a spiritualist medium; contact lens (or lenses), small glass or plastic lens(es) placed inside the eye-lids in contact with the globe of the eye to correct faulty vision; contact-level, an instrument in which a form of spirit-level is used for the determination of minute differences of length; contact-lever, the lever which moves a contact-level; contact-maker, a contrivance for completing an electric circuit automatically; contact man (orig. U.S. colloq.), an intermediary in a transaction; a go-between; one who carries or supplies information (cf. sense 2 d above); contact metamorphism Geol., the transformation of rock as a result of an igneous intrusion; contact-mine, a mine which explodes by contact; contact piece, see contact block; contact-point, the metal point which makes contact in a telegraphic-apparatus; contact printing Photogr., the making of prints by passing light through a negative on to sensitized paper, glass, or film held in direct contact with the negative; so contact plate, contact print, contact slide; contact process, a process by which sulphuric acid is obtained from sulphur trioxide in the presence of a catalyst (e.g. platinum); contact screen Photogr., a half-tone screen made on a film base; contact sport (orig. U.S.), any sport in which the participants necessarily come into bodily contact with one another; contact time, an amount or period of time during which persons meet in a particular relationship, as teacher with pupil, etc.
1958Times 17 Oct. 15/2 The *contact analogue which, through a single cathode-ray display tube and with the assistance of a computer, will give a pilot swiftly and precisely the information he requires to fly his aircraft safely and accurately. 1961Flight LXXIX. 250/2 (caption) A contact analogue pattern reflected from the trichroic combiner in a cockpit mock-up.
1902Westm. Gaz. 18 Aug. 2/1 The *contact bed treatment differs from the intermittent filtration method in that the sewage is rapidly run into a bed of cinders,..or the like, and after a few hours is as quickly run out. 1936[see bacterium 2].
1901L. M. Waterhouse Conduit Wiring 32 The *contact block of the ceiling-rose.
1838G. Bird in Phil. Mag. XII. 18 Description of a magnetic *contact-breaker. c1865J. Wylde in Circ. Sc. I. 252/2 The contact between the electro-magnet and the battery is broken by means of any form of contact-breaker.
1884F. Krohn tr. Glaser de Cew's Magn. & Dyn.-electric Mach. 264 The iron core is magnetised by the electric current flowing through the windings of the rotating helix from the one *contact-brush to the other.
1927Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. III. vii. 132 These clauses are here termed *contact-clauses, because what characterizes them is the close contact between the antecedent and the clause. 1946Trans. Philol. Soc. 1945 131 The contact-clause (Jespersen's term), i.e. parataxis with omission of that in indirect statement and with the omission of the relative pronoun when object of a verb, e.g. the man I saw.
1950Webster Add., *Contact flight.
1938A. Jordanoff Through Overcast xxv. 304 In the early days..airmen..tried to guide themselves through the overcast by the ‘feel’ of the controls which they had acquired during *contact flying. 1946Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. L. 750/2 Until adequate radio aids to navigation were available in the United Kingdom, the pilots of the regular services developed a high degree of skill in the art of ‘contact’ flying.
1906Lancet 13 Oct. 1007/1 A few years ago glass shells, which are known as *contact glasses, have been introduced by Fick, for the temporary relief of irregular corneal astigmatism. 1937Aeroplane 9 June 712 Contact glasses are thin, transparent, saucer-shaped glass bowls which fit on to the anterior surface of the eye.
1945H. Edwards Sci. Spirit Healing iv. 19 Spirit healing is divided into two main sections: (a) Absent Healing..and (b) Personal or *Contact Healing by touch, or the ‘laying on’ of hands. 1956R. M. Lester Towards Hereafter v. 67 While I was having this contact healing, I was also having absent healing.
1888C. H. May tr. A. E. Fick in Arch. Ophthalmol. XVII. 216 A small glass shell..which I call ‘a *contact-lens’. Ibid. 217 The ‘contact-lens’ consists of a thin glass shell, bounded by concentric and parallel spherical segments. 1942Lancet 30 June 744/2 Plastic contact lenses are less well tolerated than glass. 1944Times 14 Feb. 4/6 Squadron Leader Geoffrey B. Warne, D.S.O., D.F.C., a Typhoon fighter leader who wears contact lens spectacles, shot down an enemy aircraft.
1886Pall Mall G. 25 Aug. 14/1 There are in each compartment two incandescent 16-candle power lamps. By the application of a *contact maker, only one is lit at a time.
1926M. Connelly Traveler 5 Each one of us conductors is really a *contact man. 1938Dylan Thomas Let. 31 Dec. (1966) 220, I met that sap Goodland, the blue-and-water-eyed contactman. 1949Times 31 Jan. 4/6 Business men are tempted to employ ‘contact men’ in an effort to smooth away obstacles.
1876Q. Jrnl. Geol. Soc. XXXII. 426 The Cornish slates existed as metamorphic rock (cleaved and sometimes contorted) long before the intrusion of the granite. The *contact metamorphism produced thereby extends to a short distance only. 1960L. D. Stamp Britain's Struct. & Scenery (ed. 5) 24 The molten rock bakes and hardens the rocks through which it passes—it changes their form by its contact (..hence the process is called contact metamorphism).
1885Ibid. 21 Mar. 5/1 A *contact mine explodes when struck by a vessel.
1876Preece & Sivewright Telegraphy 37 The zinc plate, fitted with a brass *contact piece. 1892Pall Mall Gaz. 20 May 7/1 The engine is provided with a contact piece, and as soon as it touches the insulated bar electrical connection with the signal-box is established.
1892W. Abney Instruct. Photogr. (ed. 9) 253 Transparencies by *Contact Plates.
1879G. B. Prescott Sp. Telephone 11 The position of this *contact-point may be adjusted by means of a screw. 1884Chamb. Jrnl. 25 Oct. 686/1 Iridium has been used..for..contact points for telegraphic apparatus.
1890[see Kodak n. c]. 1933Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXVII. 232 ‘*Contact prints’ are made with the negative and the printing paper in direct contact. 1962Unesco Bull. for Libraries XVI. 3 When copies of a microphotographic negative are required, contact prints may be made either on transparent material or on paper.
1876W. Abney Instruct. Photogr. (ed. 3) 99 The following are modes of production [of transparencies] by the camera or by *contact printing. 1897C. M. Hepworth Animated Photogr. xiv. 103 When used for contact printing, two spools are attached in a light-tight box to the top of the instrument.
1903G. Lunge Manuf. Sulphuric Acid (ed. 3) I. xi. 975 We have here the fundamental features of the *contact-process as now employed, and Peregrine Phillips must be called its inventor. 1910Encycl. Brit. V. 501/2 The ‘spongy’ platinum so formed brings about the combination of..sulphur dioxide and oxygen to form sulphur trioxide. The last reaction..receives commercial application in the contact process of sulphuric acid manufacture.
1940Photographic Jrnl. LXXX. 59 (heading) Preparation of vignetted or *contact screens. 1957R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour xi. 151 With a contact screen..a fine line will clearly be reproduced as a line of dots, each of which is elongated in the direction of the line.
1892Photogr. Ann. II. 58 There is some thing in a slide by reduction which a *contact slide lacks, and no doubt this is due to the fact that the former is made by the agency of daylight.
1949P. Cummings Dict. Sports 82/1 *Contact sport, a sport or game where the contestants come..in bodily contact with one another. The list includes boxing, wrestling, football, [etc.]. 1981Daily Tel. 19 Mar. 18 Fatalities occur in all sports, especially the ‘contact’ sports which, in addition to karate, boxing, wrestling, and judo, must include rugby, association football and basketball.
1966Slavic & E. Europ. Jrnl. X. 323 These activities give the student *contact time towards his 1000 hours. 1986Teacher 2 June 1/5 (heading) Agreement needed on class size, contact time, says NUT.
b. Applied attrib. to operations (or units engaged therein) which have the object of maintaining contact between aircaft and advancing forces of infantry, as contact control, contact machine, contact patrol, contact work.
1917Blackw. Mag. Mar. 380/1 Machines would be detailed for contact work with our infantry. Ibid. Aug. 144/2 The low-flying contact machines..play their part of mothering the infantry. Ibid. 147/1 The new system of contact patrols was found [in 1916] to be useful in dealing with Boche movements directly behind the front line. 1918E. M. Roberts Flying Fighter 131 Contact Control, the purpose of which is to keep in touch with advancing infantry, tabulate its progress, and then report to headquarters. 1934Flight 18 Jan. 48 Contact patrols, as they were called, became a regular duty of the Royal Flying Corps.
▸ contact high n. slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.) a feeling of elation or intoxication influenced by the (esp. drug-induced) behaviour or mood of another person; (also) an instance of intoxication caused by (inadvertent) inhalation of smoke from another person's marijuana cigarette, pipe, etc.
1958J. Kerouac Subterraneans i. 29 And of junkies man, I hung around with them,..and I was getting, every time they turned on, a kind of *contact high. 1977Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 3 Sept. b7/2, I felt higher than I had ever been and I had taken no drugs. Was it a contact high from three days around gurus? 1991J. Phillips You'll never eat Lunch in this Town Again 257, I have been smoking a joint in the van..and Joe O'Hare..has gotten a contact high. 2000J. Williams Cardiff Dead (2001) xv. 198 Mazz fell in with a bunch of lads from Pontypool as he was walking up St Mary St and started to get a contact high from their elation.
▪ II. contact, v.|ˈkɒntækt, kənˈtækt|
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To bring into or place in contact.
1834Eden in Fraser's Mag. XI. 644 The spark and the gunpowder contacted, and acting together, produce the explosion.
2. intr. To come into, or be in, contact.
1876J. Rose Pract. Machinist 297 So that each side of the drift will have contacted with each side of the hole.
1883H. Greer Dict. Electr. 21 To prevent contact with two or more plates at the same time, their contacting portions are so arranged that no two consecutive plates are in the same vertical line.
3. trans. To get into contact or in touch with (a person). orig. U.S. colloq.
1927Spectator 6 Aug. 212/2 Dreiser should not be allowed to corrupt his language by writing ‘anything that Clyde had personally contacted here’. 1929L. F. Carr America Challenged 61 Mr. Dickey contacted every family in three representative agricultural counties. 1935A. P. Herbert What a Word! 100 A charming lady in the publicity business shocked me when we parted by saying ‘It has been such fun contacting you.’ 1936Wodehouse Laughing Gas ix. 95 The prospect whom I was planning to contact, as they call it in America, was leaning back in the arm-chair. 1938Manch. Guardian Weekly 19 Aug. 148/1 Will you please retain your ticket until you have contacted Mr. ―. 1940Times Weekly 27 Nov. 1/4 (Advt.), Factory representatives in most parts of world. Contact your local trader. 1951Good Housek. Home Encycl. 85/1 See that everyone in the household knows how to contact the nearest Fire Service, by telephone if possible.
▪ III. contact(e
var. conteck, Obs., strife, contention. |